William Manchester and the Art of Popular History

This essay is adapted from a talk I was invited to give at the Wesleyan University Library on the occasion of historian William Manchester’s archive becoming officially open to the public. On June 1, 2004, when William Manchester died, I went to a shelf in my home where I keep some books from my late father’s … More William Manchester and the Art of Popular History

From the Electronic Archive: My Second Career at the Same University

This is a (slightly) shorter version of a presentation I gave eight years ago at the 2008 American Historical Association Conference in Washington, D.C. I wrote it at a time when I had come to terms with some professional challenges. Most immediately, my promotion to full professor gone horribly awry, and as I began to … More From the Electronic Archive: My Second Career at the Same University